Originally Posted by
XeNo
It's an expression.
The way the expression works is like this: Take given measurement and translate to amount of time it would take to cover said distance realistically, in a context for which the expression was used.
So if someone said, for example, "This is miles beyond (Could also be simply "beyond" since it can be taken as a measurement given the context, "Beyond what?" Beyond the gate, beyond the fence, further past what said person is using as a point of reference, which is a distance expression if you think of it in this context) what I've imagined is possible." You would take the given measurement (miles) and assume they meant a measurement of time. So you would take the realistic perspective of how long it would take said person to travel said miles, in scale to what they're expressing as "miles beyond".
If they're in a state of utter bewilderment, you can safely assume that "miles" is translated into "great length", and add said length to a measurement of time, to understand the context in which a measurement that was not specifically time was used to describe time. The result is that the "distance of time" is a very long time, beyond the amount of time in which the person originally was thinking was in the realm of possibility (as far as they could see, which is a measurement of distance, hence going "beyond" that would mean it is surpassing their expectations, which is just a form of measuring realistic possibility, which I don't think we need to get into right now, we'll just deal with translating an expression of distance to an expression of time).
So given the context in which I used a form of distance (light years) to represent a measurement of time, we can safely assume by what I just explained, that I was expressing time with a parallel measurement of distance (This case, light years being a very, very, very far distance) that the amount of time I was expressing is a "very, very, very long time".
Here is some math for you, if it helps: A light year is (9.4607 × 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles)), so we take ~6 trillion and put in formation of time, how long would it take to go said distance. The average space shuttle speed is 17,500 miles per hour, this speed to go ~6 trillion miles is:
6trillion / 17,500 = ~342,857,142.857(repeating, of course yayvideogamerreferences!) hours - We're on our way to giving a distance a relative amount of time! Woohoo!
342,857,142.857 hours / 24 hours in a day = ~14,285,714.286 days - One more step!
14,285,714.286 days / 365.25 (leap year) days in a year = ~39,112.154 years.
So we can now reasonably say that my statement could be translated to "...several approximately thirty-nine thousand, one hundred and twelve point one-five-four years ahead of our time." But doesn't it just sound better to say "...light years ahead of our time."?
I'm glad I could assist you in understanding this very common expression of using a distance that is not time to explain a measurement of time.